Business Administration and Business Economics

Qian Long Kweh · Norazlin Ahmad · Irene Wei Kiong Ting · Cheng Zhang · Hasahudin Hassan ·Institutions and Economies ·2019 ·JEL: G34; L21

This study investigates the influences of board gender diversity and board independence on firm performance. Ordinary least squares, two-stage least squares and generalised method of moments are employed to test the relationships among board gender diversity, board independence, and firm performance in firms listed on Bursa Malaysia between 2010 and 2015. The regression results indicate that female directors and independent directors significantly and negatively affect firm performance, respectively. However, the interaction term of board gender diversity and board independence is statistically insignificant. Overall, managers must consider that board gender diversity and board independence may not have an interactive effect on improving the performance of their firms.

Siti Hajar Salwa Binti Ahmad Musadik (University Utara Malaysia (UUM)) · Ilhaamie Binti Abdul Ghani Azmi (Academy of Islamic Studies University of Malaya (UM)) ·Malaysian Journal of Consumer and Family Economics ·2019

Studies on impulse buying have been substantially conducted in developing countries by vast researchers. Nevertheless, such studies are in scarcity amidst Asian countries, particularly Malaysia. Besides, studies that have looked into the variables of materialism, sale promotion, money and time availability, and hedonic motivation are also rather sparsely carried out in the light of impulse buying behaviour. As such, this study examined the correlations between situational variables (sale promotion, money and time availability) and individual variable (materialism and hedonic motivation) with impulse buying behaviour among Muslim credit cardholders in Malaysia. In terms of instrument development, this study instrument consisted of 44 items adopted and adapted from prior studies. Questionnaires were distributed to 1,000 Muslim credit cardholders in Malaysia via purposive and snowball sampling techniques and only 635 were usable for final data analysis. The analysis was performed via Partial Least Square (PLS-SEM) analysis. The outcomes revealed that materialism, sale promotion, money and time availability, and hedonic motivation displayed significant positive correlations with impulse buying behaviour.

Siew-Boey Yeoh · Chee-Wooi Hooy ·Malaysian Journal of Economic Studies ·2021 ·JEL: G31, G32

Our paper uses a multidimensional analysis to provide a better insight on the relationship between CEO foreign experience and corporate risk-taking. By decomposing the foreign experience of CEOs from developing economies such as Malaysia, we find that CEOs who have studied in OECD countries undertake higher levels of risk-taking and CEOs’ foreign working experience may have an adverse effect on risk-taking behaviour especially if the working experience is obtained from non-OECD countries. Additional analysis reveals that younger CEOs and family CEOs with foreign working experience matter in reinforcing the firms’ risk-taking activities. Overall, our findings provide implication for researchers and policymakers seeking to nurture risk-taking behaviours and innovativeness in emerging countries.

Kai Chen Goh · Nur Syahidah Said · Hui Hwang Goh · Ta Wee Seow · Sulzakimin Mohamed · Md Asrul Nasid Masrom ·Malaysian Journal of Consumer and Family Economics ·2019

Tourism industry in Malaysia has experienced continued growth due to Malaysia’s beautiful natural assets over decades. Tourism is largely depending on the clean environment, so the issues of operational hotel waste cannot be ignored. It is expected that customer behaviour while staying at the hotel can produce tonnes of waste. As a result, becoming a green customer is a step to cope with this problem. Green customers are people who committed about going green that will help to create a better environment. This concept is widely used in other countries but “limited” in Malaysia especially on green customers’ intention. Therefore, the theory of planned behaviour has been tested to define which factor is influencing the customer intention to practice green while staying at the hotel. This paper aimed to define which measurement items represent the factors of (attitude, subjective norm, perceived behaviour control and overall image). Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) is used to validate the measurement model. The questionnaires are distributed and 210 respondents are received. The respondents are focussed to hotel customers in Malaysia. Data analysing is using Analysis of Moments Structures (AMOS) to confirm the unidimensional, validity and reliability for measurement model. Findings indicate most respondents perceived positive perception toward participating in green campaign favourably affect to practice green while staying at the hotel while the other factors were found no significantly generalise the finding. This highlighted the finding as to the emerging of group green customer in Malaysia still a long way to go.

Nur Sa’adah Muhamad · Syahnaz Sulaiman · Khairul Akmaliah Adham · Mohd Fuaad Said ·Pertanika Journal of Social Science and Humanities ·2019

Halal tourism, which arises from the growth in the number of Muslim travellers world-wide and the rapid development of halal industry, is defined as the engagement of any object or action by Muslim travellers that conforms to the Islamic teachings and facilitates the practice of the religion. As such, the application of halal concept in tourism, including in its development and marketing, must be guided by the Islamic principles. With the purpose to understand the current state of knowledge and practice, we reviewed the literature on halal tourism that has been published in high-tier academic journals. Based on the review, we identified the emergent themes and the knowledge gaps for future research. Among others, we found that the industry is booming with increased participations from Muslimminority countries. However, there seems to be variations in the practice, perhaps due to the complexity of the market needs. The implementation of halal tourism by Muslimminority countries is the most pressing issue due to the need to ensure that the process and the service offered strictly comply with the requirements of Islamic teachings, while at the same time, to ensure that the countries are able to develop their halal sectors into competitive industries. Understanding the implementation of halal tourism is an important agenda for future research to ensure that the service provided addresses the fundamental issue of Muslims’ obligations to adhere to the Islamic teachings in all aspects of their lives including while travelling.

Abd Halim Ahmad · Nur Adiana Hiau Abdullah · Kamarun Nisham Taufil Mohd ·International Journal of Economics and Management ·2022 ·JEL: G33, G32, G34

This study examined the effects of institutional factors, including; board size, blockholder ownership, and political connections, as some of the determinants (apart from various company-level financial variables) on the outcomes of financially distressed listed companies in Malaysia. A highly concentrated ownership structure is common in most developing countries, including Malaysia. Besides, Malaysia has a unique disclosure environment where all listed companies must release relevant and adequate information to the public to improve investors' protection and corporate transparency. Therefore, Practice Notes which are standards and measures for Malaysian Listed Companies, are designed to help listed companies that are financially distressed to restructure their debts within a stipulated time, giving them sufficient time to re-emerge in the exchange. The logistic regression analysis results on a sample of financially distressed Malaysian public listed companies suggested that; interest coverage ratio, stock returns, blockholder ownership, and political connections were significance at the 5% level. The institutional variables suggested that blockholder ownership and political connectedness had a positive and significant effect on the possibility of companies emerging from financially distressed conditions. The findings have provided important practical implications for managers and potential investors in their risk management decisions.

Noryati Ahmad · Wan Evva Wan Suriea · Ummu Naziha Mohd Ariffin ·Malaysian Journal of Consumer and Family Economics ·2019

In Malaysia, the insurance industry is operated by conventional insurance companies and Islamic insurance companies (or better known as Takaful.). Even though the nature of business of these two types of companies is almost similar however at operational and investment level, Islamic insurance companies must be in tune with the Shariah principles. Policyholders, investors and regulators are interested in the performance of these companies. Hence, this study aims to investigate the determinants of investment performance of Islamic and conventional insurance companies in Malaysia. Company-specific factors (company size, solvency margin and liquidity) and macro factors (GDP, interest and profit rates, equity returns and inflation) are independent variables employed in the study. A panel regression was estimated on 11 Islamic and 14 conventional insurance companies in Malaysia from the year 2006 to 2015. Interestingly empirical findings revealed that only liquidity and lagged GDP statistically significant relationship with the investment performance of Islamic insurance companies. On the other hand, in addition to liquidity and lagged GD, the investment performance of conventional insurance companies is also statistically and significantly influenced by interest rate and equity returns. These findings provide policyholders, investors as well as regulators with pertinent information related to an appropriate decision made on Islamic and conventional insurance companies.

Hasnan Baber ·Malaysian Journal of Consumer and Family Economics ·2019

The study is aimed to investigate the gap between the level of service quality expectations and perception and its impact on customer satisfaction in Islamic banks of Malaysia. Shariah Compliance dimension was included in the SERVQUAL model of service quality. A 29 item questionnaire was employed to collect data from 721 customers of selected banks of Malaysia. In this study, data were statistically analysed through reliability analysis, paired sample t-test, exploratory factor analysis, regression analysis and followed by confirmed factor analysis. Structural equation modelling was used to measure service quality perception and customer satisfaction. This study revealed that there is a partial significant gap between expected and perceived service quality level except in Shariah Compliance and tangibility. The study suggested that there is a positive and significant impact of modified multidimensional SERVQUAL quality scale on customer satisfaction. Addition of Shariah compliance dimension showed the highest contributing factor among all dimensions and thus its inclusion was justified. The study was original and novel to find a quality gap and its impact on Malaysian Islamic bank customers and it will help policymakers of Malaysia and other countries to improve to meet customer expectations.

Wan Norhidayah W Mohamad · Faten Nabila Abdul Fatah · Zaiton Samdin · Bakti Hasan-Basri ·International Journal of Economics and Management ·2022 ·JEL: Q51, Q57

The tourism sector plays an important part in Malaysia's economy. It includes beach and recreational tourism. However, most recreational beaches in Malaysia do not impose an entrance fee on visitors. Depending on government funding to maintain recreational beach facilities is not the best option for the future. Therefore, funding directly from visitors is needed to help cater for beach maintenance costs. Based on this, it is crucial to understand how much visitors are willing to pay for the recreational use of beaches, as any money collected could be used to help to improve facilities and services at beach areas. This study investigated visitors' willingness to pay for recreational beach facilities and has provided policy recommendations for better management of tourist facilities and services in the future. Teluk Kemang beach in Port Dickson was chosen as the case study location. This study applied the Choice Experiments (CE) method, and the model used was the Conditional Logit (CL) model. This research used four attributes: amenities, recreational facilities, cleanliness, and entrance fee. The CL results revealed that visitors were willing to pay for good amenities and cleanliness, with values of RM2.07 and RM2.43, respectively. Therefore, it was discovered that it was practical to charge an entrance fee to cover improved maintenance of beach facilities

Md Fauzi Ahmad (Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM)) · Khor Chun Hoong (Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM)) · Norhadilah Abdul Hamid (Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM)) · Norliana Sarpin (Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM)) · Rozlin Zainal (Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM)) · Ahmad Nur Aizat Ahmad (Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM)) · Mohd Fahrul Hassan (Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM)) · Mohd Nasrun Mohd Nawi (Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM)) ·International Journal of Supply Chain Management ·2018

New product design and process design are vital aspects for a company to survive in in global competition market. Product design determines in the success of a company through how product design can accomplish in today's marketplace and customer needs. Nevertheless, many new products which have been developed from research and development fail to compete in global market due to product performance issue such as quality, cost and delivery. Besides, many new product design is not capable to match with the process design and machine capability in production process. The objective of this paper is to identify the relationship between new product design and new product process design towards new product performance in manufacturing industry. Random sampling techniques have been used by distributing questionnaire to 400 companies in Malaysia manufacturing sector. 80 companies had replied with the respond rate of 20%. The result shows that the extent level of new product design and process design are moderate and high level respectively. Furthermore, there is a significant relationship between new product process design and new product performance (r(80) = 0.570, p < 0.05). However, there are no significant relationships between new product design and new product performance (r(80) = 0.092, p > 0.05). The study is important to gain insight on the effect of new product design and new product process design towards new product performance.

Suhaiza Ismail · Zuhudha Rasheed ·Meditari Accountancy Research ·2019

Purpose This paper aims to identify the influence of personal factors on the ethical judgement of future accountants in Malaysia. In particular, there are two research objectives for this study: first, to investigate the influence of ethical ideology on the ethical judgement of accounting students and second, to investigate the influence of emotional intelligence (EI) on ethical judgement. Design/methodology/approach The respondents of the study were final year undergraduate accounting students from three public universities in Malaysia. A survey questionnaire comprising instruments about ethical ideology, EI and ethical judgement was distributed. A total of 205 responses were received and were deemed as useable. To achieve the research objectives, multiple regression was performed. Findings The findings indicate that idealism and EI have a positive influence on the ethical judgement. In contrast, the study discovered that relativism influences ethical judgement negatively. Originality/value This study fills the research gap as research on personal factors on the ethical judgement of future accountants is very limited and scarce. It gives insights to the various parties concerning how to enhance ethical judgement among future accountants, which ultimately will improve the credibility of the accounting profession.

Mengdie Ruan · Angathevar Baskaran · Shanshan Zhou ·Millennial Asia ·2021

This article explores the contributions of—and constraints faced by—small and medium enterprises (SMEs) owned by mainland Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs in Malaysia using qualitative research and primary data gathered from five cases. It was found that Chinese immigrant SMEs make significant contributions to the host economy in terms of employment, diverse products and services, exports, innovation, micro foreign direct investment (FDI) and global linkages. Of these, employment creation and exports appear to be their most important contributions. They face various constraints, some of which are largely the same as those faced by local entrepreneurs. However, they additionally face some specific constraints which local entrepreneurs do not, such as language barrier, lack of financial support in the growth stage, lack of government assistance, and onerous bureaucratic problems, such as tax and visa requirements. The findings suggest that the government should create a special department to formulate tailor-made policies and incentives to support immigrant-owned SMEs, so that their contribution to the future economic development of Malaysia can be further strengthened and monitored.

Karen M. Y. Lai · Andriyawan Sasmita · Ferdinand A. Gul · Yee Boon Foo · Marion Hutchinson ·Journal of Business Ethics ·2018

The required professional and ethical pronouncements of accountants mean that auditors need to be competent and exercise due care and skill in the performance of their audits. In this study, we examine what happens when auditors take on more clients than they should, thus raising doubts about their ability to maintain competence and audit quality. Using 2803 observations of Malaysian companies from 2010 to 2013, we find that auditors with multiple clients are associated with lower earnings quality, proxied by total accruals and discretionary accruals. Our results demonstrate that associating client firms’ reported discretionary accruals with individual auditors, rather than their firms or offices, is important in determining audit quality. Moreover, we demonstrate that the disclosure of auditors’ signatures on their reports is useful for assessing auditor quality at the individual level, thus contributing to the debate on the usefulness of having auditor identities on reports.

Christine Nya Ling Tan · Adedapo Oluwaseyi Ojo · Ramayah Thurasamy ·Young Consumers ·2019

Purpose This study aims to investigate the factors, which may potentially influence green product buying decision among young consumers in Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach A perceived lack of intention to buy green products observed among the Malaysian Generation Young consumers has sparked the interest to carry out this study. With the aid of structured questionnaires, data were collected from a total of 217 respondents, between 18 and 25 years of age. Findings The results of data analysis indicated that environmental consciousness, eco-label, price and advertising were significant predictors of green product buying behaviour. Contrary to the hypothesis, attitude was not a significant predictor of green buying behaviour among young consumers. The implications of these findings and directions for future research are outlined at the end of this paper. Originality/value This study offers empirical insights from the perspective of an emerging economy on the determinants of green products buying behaviour among young consumers.

Siew Imm Ng · Jo Ann Ho · Xin Jean Lim · Kee Lin Chong · Khairunnisak Latiff ·Young Consumers ·2019

Purpose In this digitalization age, smart technologies are on the cusp of changing all business sector including retailing. Today’s consumers desire to shop in a smart store where the physical products on display are connected to the internet world. This study aims to propose a model for investigating Generation Z (Gen-Z) consumers’ expectations towards the smart retail technology (SRT) in the Malaysian context through the application of the stimulus-organism-response framework. Design/methodology/approach By using a purposive sampling technique, a self-administered questionnaire was conducted. A total of 220 usable responses were collected from Gen-Z consumers who had experience in using SRT. The data were analysed using partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). Findings This study underscores the role of perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment and perceived value on Gen-Z consumers’ attitude and word-of-mouth (WOM). Expectations on usefulness, enjoyment and value provide some ideas on Gen-Z consumers’ value who put a high emphasis on functional value, fun value and value for money when adopting the SRT. On the other hand, the result also demonstrates the mediating role of consumers’ attitude in connecting perceived value and perceived enjoyment on WOM towards SRT. Practical implications The findings of this study provide beneficial insights for a retailer who desire to pursue a smart-related acquisition strategy. Retailers are recommended to embrace on the following three key features: innovative solution (high usefulness), reliable benefits (high perceived value) and fun experience (high enjoyment) to provide Gen-Z consumers with compelling experiences. Additionally, retailers are suggested to acknowledge the importance of managing consumers’ attitude in driving positive WOM evaluations. Originality/value This paper responds to Ting et al.’s (2018) call in uncovering values and lifestyles of generation in details. In Malaysia, retailers ought to incorporate of the high level of usefulness, value and enjoyment when designing their SRT to constitute the Gen-Z consumers’ expectations. Moreover, similar to Ting’s conclusion, this cohort members are very much into technologies and they tend to embrace SRT in their lifestyles.